This activity is perfect for mixed ages of children and is simple enough to be from preschool and up.

2. COLOURFUL SALT PAINTING

Salt painting would have to be one of my all time favourite process art activities!

It's a simple multi-step process which is ideal for preschool aged children. It can be a free form exploration or a more precise creation like the one created by my 10 yr old at home.

First, you can create a picture using a strong, white PVA-glue.

Then, sprinkle some salt over all of the glue making sure it is completely covered. Shake off any excess salt carefully.

Using a small, soft paintbrush and three primary coloured watercolours, lightly touch the brush with your paint to the salt line. Your children will be amazed to see the colour move quickly along the line of salt.

3. DIY LIQUID WATER COLOURS

You can easily make your own too by simply recycling old dried markers.

By adding two different coloured markers to the same container, you can mix colours without any mess.

You can use any container to do this. We like to put ours into spray bottles to use for painting outside. Ideal for building up fine motor strength too! You can see how our spray paint art turned out here.

4. CREATE YOUR OWN SELF SERVE PAINT STATION

How genius is this idea! Use empty hand soap dispensers for paint.

Being smaller, children can help themselves to paint without getting too much from each squirt. It also means no more paint brushes put back in the wrong paint at your easels as children can create their own palette from old egg cartons or plastic lids.

You can print out these colour mixing labels for FREE. Look for the link at the end of this post!

5. MIX TO MATCH NATURE

Working in Early Childhood, we all know how much children love to mix paint.

Drawing inspiration from nature, this activity invited children to create their own shades of green to match plants found in the preschool yard. They also used the paint chips to match to the plants as well.

So simple to set up but was very popular and kept many children engaged until they had filled their palettes with different shades.

6. WALKING WATER EXPERIMENT

This colour mixing experiment is such a fun one to try in the classroom or at home.

Simple to set up - six glass cups the same size, water, paper towel and food colouring (red/blue/yellow) or liquid water colour paint.

You can find the instructions and scientific reasons why the 'water walks' over at The STEM Laboratory.